Special Report Contents

• The challenges to becoming a smart city

• Dubai pursues smart grids

• Complex issues confront smart city projects

The idea of a smart city tends to mean different things to different people and there are probably more definitions than actual smart cities. A few bodies have developed their own definitions in recent years, although these are often a work in progress.

The International Standards Organisation is developing a set of indicators for city services and sustainable communities. It published its ISO 37120 standard in May 2014, which sets out what should be measured in 17 areas, including energy, the environment, telecoms and transport. However, it does not include specific targets.

In June 2014, the Geneva-based International Telecommunications Union came up with a definition for ‘smart sustainable cities’, which it describes as “an innovative city that uses information and communication technologies, and other means to improve quality of life, efficiency of urban operations and services, and competitiveness”.

For the Geneva-based International Electrotechnical Commission, meanwhile, a technology standards organisation, the three critical elements involved in a smart city are social, economic and environmental sustainability.

All of these definitions and standards have a few common factors: a drive for city services to be more efficient and the use of technology to make that happen. Judging how successful a city is at doing that remains a matter of opinion rather than raw numbers.